Link Log for September 9-10

Categories: Animals, Anniversary, Books, Crafts, Cybersecurity, Deliberate Omission, Etiquette, Flowers, Funny, History, Medical Care, Phenology Link, Politics, Science, Welfare Cheats.

Animals 

How to keep dogs from damaging doors:

http://blogjob.com/theadventuresofpandazeusandbaby/2015/09/09/ways-to-stop-a-dog-from-scratching-up-a-door/

Anniversary 

The Queen's:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/09/queen-elizabeth-ii-makes-history-as-britains-longest-reigning-monarch/

Books 

Hilary Grossman's new novel:

http://www.itsjustlife.me/book-cover-reveal-plan-bea-by-hilary-grossman/

Crafts 

Natalie Ford knits again. (More charming knitted things under the "Forward," "Back," and "Patterns" buttons.)

http://www.natalieford.com/?p=1367

Cybersecurity 

Dave Urbanski demonstrates that Facebook's policy of publishing private people's real names in no way protects them from being "followed" or "friended" by convicted felons. (And this web site is sure a company that hassles a writer who wants to use the name on the covers of his popular books, e.g. Salman Rushdie, because that's not his full legal name, believed that "Eskabar Juice" is somebody's real legal name...not.)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/09/the-unbelievable-story-of-violent-criminals-who-maintain-facebook-pages-behind-bars-and-the-mind-boggling-ways-they-use-them/?

Deliberate Omission 

As a Bible Maven, I replied on Google + to something Billy Hallowell posted at The Blaze. Google + claims to be restricted to readers over age 18. This web site is open to readers of any age, so this web site is more family-filtered than my Google + page. A medical term that snags in my family filters is over there.

Etiquette 

Etiquette products?

http://blogjob.com/ideasforindoorliving/polite-ways-to-keep-people-from-double-dipping/

http://blogjob.com/ideasforindoorliving/best-ways-to-share-leftover-food-after-a-party/

Flowers 

Are you cleaning out your flower beds, Gentle Readers?

http://blogjob.com/gettingoffthegrid/2015/09/09/cleaning-flower-beds-for-winter/

Funny 

Short story that I can believe may be true:

http://blogjob.com/writebuzz/2015/09/09/the-sound-of-flip-flops-on-the-face/

History 

They're not even reenacting a battle--just a "period" style--and they get hatemail. Some people are just haters. Got it. Anyway, these historians seem to be having fun. (Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for this link; thanks to Jonjon for prompting me to discover their web page earlier in the week.)

http://www.vox.com/2015/9/9/9275611/victorian-era-life

Medical Care 

Here's a web site that offers an improvement over Obamacare because it cuts out the insurance gamble. This doctor's "Direct Patient Care plan" is an individual contract where patients opt into a club-type plan, pay $50 per month at times when they don't need much medical care, then get all the medical attention they may need at some future time for the same $50 per month. Because it's an individual contract, I respect individuals' right to sign on to it. I personally prefer a cash fee for specific services rendered, but for retirees on a fixed income, the built-in inequalities of return on this kind of investment may not matter as much as the security of being able to budget for medical expenses each month.

http://dpctransformation.blogspot.com/

Phenology 

From Alabama:

http://blogjob.com/gettingoffthegrid/2015/09/07/enough-is-enough-pears/

Politics 

This web site has no foreign policy...but this web site does commend, to the consideration of both parties, the logical beauty of the Scott Adams policy. (By promoting awareness of this policy as such, this web site is preemptively warning politicians to give due credit to a private individual, a writer, for this policy if they use it.)

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/128709386661/a-demonstration-of-persuasion-part-of-my-trump

Btw, regular readers may have noticed that comments on this site are now hosted by Disqus. Disqus is a free comment hosting service that many people find easier to use than Google; you register once and then, unless you abuse the system, you can comment and socialize at hundreds of other sites that use Disqus, indefinitely. (You can even see the comments someone has made over years in the past before deciding whether you want to debate with the person. Disqus penalizes spam and blatant hate, but not rudeness; some Disqus users get mean.) Here's a political site that also uses Disqus, that's publicized a stupid, annoying remark just so you can see how a range of almost all conservative commenters reacted to it. I give my own comment full marks for blandness, wordiness, nerdiness, and auntliness.

http://eaglerising.com/23522/fox-news-geraldo-rivera-says-ben-carson-only-gets-support-because-hes-black/

Science 

A new gene splicing issue to worry about? Or a bogus issue? The diamondback moth, like the corn earworm moth, becomes a pest when greedhead farming techniques have displaced more sustainable and health-supporting techniques. Organic farms have lost some profit to the population explosions the monocrop-and-poison-bomb farms have created, but the threat to crops is dramatically reduced when sustainable organic farms allow natural predators to defend natural crops.

http://acsh.org/2015/09/saving-crops-with-gm-moths-instead-of-pesticides/

Welfare Cheats 

This Link Log is long because I had an opportunity to observe a welfare cheat turn down a day's temp work because she was too ill to work, then borrow (without asking) a mutual friend's car (in which the friend and I had planned to go somewhere) and go out on the town till 10 p.m. She was unfit to work all right--visibly stoned on pills; she admitted having taken four or five different over-the-counter pills to get "high," but seemed more hostile and irrational than "high" and wanted to careen around in a car in traffic. Thanks to Obamacare, we all paid for the medication this scag "needs" to manage her various "diseases" like indigestion, insomnia, and backaches: the occupational injuries incurred by watching TV all day. I think there's a lot to be said for the idea of returning the job of overseeing welfare programs to private, local charities, even though, historically, they never seem to have raised enough voluntary contributions without some sort of help from church or state. The federal government has no way to distinguish between the pillhead I observed, and an honest woman who might have "good days and bad days" with genuine chemical sensitivities or multiple sclerosis.

The pillhead doesn't think of herself as a scag--dresses like a member of one of the more conservative local churches, although I don't think she attends one, and makes a big show of not using alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana. Only "pain medication" because working three days a week is, ooohhh, so strenuous. (Not that she's interested in exploring physical therapy or improving her diet. If she'd tried those and they hadn't worked, I could understand. She refuses to try alternatives to pill-popping.) And she's just one representative of a substantial part of our middle-aged and senior population in my formerly anti-drug home town, now known for its high incidence of prescription drug abuse. I blame the individual pillheads; I also blame the insurance industry, and Obamacare, for enabling them.

Anyway, thanks to Andria Perry for providing this opportunity to rant in the Link Log...

http://blogjob.com/greatamericandream/2015/09/07/the-great-american-dream-all-free/